Environmental group warns of lead in baby food

9:03 a.m. ET June 17, 2017
SALEM, Ore. — Low levels of lead contaminate many of the foods Americans eat, including nearly all categories of baby food, a report by the Environmental Defense Fund shows.

Fruit juices, root vegetables and cookies were the baby foods most likely to contain lead. “No child gets high levels of lead from food alone,” said Tom Neltner, chemicals policy director for the 50-year-old nonpartisan, non-profit advocacy group. “But low levels of lead cause a lot of harm to kids

Lowry — who is not affiliated with the research — said there is no safe level of lead and lead in baby food can contribute to a child's elevated blood lead level.“Children who have elevated blood lead levels are more likely to have speech delays, cognitive difficulties, lower IQs,” she said. “Only a slight difference in IQ is enough to sometimes cause difficulty in school and learning.” Lower IQs caused by lead exposure translate into a total of $27 billion per year in lost lifetime earnings nationwide, the Environmental Defense Fund calculates in its report.

The Environmental Defense Fund analyzed publicly available data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Total Diet Study, which each year collects samples of food from around the country and tests it for a host of nutrients and contaminants, including lead. The report found 20% of the 2,164 baby food samples were positive for lead, compared with 14% of the 10,064 regular food samples. The highest level was detected in a sample of vegetable and beef dinner

3. +1

4. The weird thing was the juices.

I can't think of any principled reason why baby apple juice would have a higher incidence of lead contamination than regular apple juice.

The best I can come up with is accidental: It depends on the water supply used by the manufacturer, or the region they pulled their produce from. I don't like that as an explanation, but it's what we're stuck with. But it also means that farm-to-table restaurants and farmers markets would also be producing a lot of marginally contaminated food.

Or perhaps baby juices are more concentrated, more pure whatever the juice is. Apple-ier, grapier, whatever.

On the other hand ... the government says 5 ppb or below is acceptable for water. (Not "safe," but since some areas have Pb in the water already and 0.000 ppb of Pb can be rough to get to, okay.)

The report said "lead was detected." I've seen studies where 15 ppt of lead, 0.015 ppb, were reported. Now, it's nice that they point out instances where the levels were over 5 ppb, but unless they say something about what their sensitivity cut-off was "lead was detected" is pretty much fear-mongering.